Addy turned with an accusation in her eyes. I knew why, though it was unwarranted. It would have taken weeks of coaxing the ship to grant us a second bedroom for what it would have perceived to be no reason. While Cecelia entering our home, would have immediately flagged it for a need for a secondary room, but now --and in front of Cecelia no less-- was neither the time nor place to have that discussion.

I gingerly walked past my mate, though her eyes tracked me the entire time. On most occasions, I would have found the sensation of her eyes on me thrilling, but I could feel the miscommunication brewing.

The fact that she accepted my gentle touch on her arm as I brushed by her assuaged the concern that was just beginning to take root. That and the heavy sigh she let out that I could catalog as one of those meaning "I'll deal with this later" born more from tiredness than from anger.

Cecelia stood in the middle of the room. Staring up at the lifted ceilings in the space.

The room was standard fare for a guest room. The walls were warmer tones closer to an umber. I'd seen this room and the variations of it hundreds of times. It one of many similar rooms pulled from a rotation of the ship's schematics at random. What interested me was Cecelia herself.

Admittedly, I knew very little about humans in general, having ever interacted with Addy face to face and only her Riniere the few times over Comms, but something about Cecelia struck me as odd, though I couldn't put my finger on it.

Even her emotions gave me precious little insight into her thoughts, they were mostly muted, buried behind whatever was going on in her mind to the extent that she barely gave them any room to be felt at all. All I could glean was that she was genuine...and curious. Which —all things considered—there were worse things for someone in her position to be feeling.

"If you interface with the far wall, the ship can calibrate clothing for you to wear during your time here."

I had intended to pull Addy deeper into our quarters to allow Cecelia to explore her room without us hovering, but she turned to me quickly to whisper, "She's not going to have any idea what you mean by that." My eyes tracked up from those lips that usually kept my focus, up to those limitless eyes, then farther up past the off-kilter part in her blonde hair —mussed from her nervously adjusting it— to finally just over the top of her head where I could see Cecelia along the far wall trailing her fingers softly along the interface.

"She's managing just fine," I whispered back so our guest couldn't hear us speaking about her.

Addy whirled as quietly as she could, muttering a simple "Oh."

She let me lead her back into the living area.

"She seems to be doing fine, I guess," the words were positive in nature but the way she said them inclined me to think she was a little disappointed. When she turned to me, she pinned me with a look, "Was I just a baby when I first came here?"

It was one of those words that had a million translations in her language and all of them rushed forward. The words routed through the language interface while it parsed out the meaning of her slang. It finally settled on synonyms like childish or even useless though it did flag the context of the sentence itself as one of a less severe nature than those words usually would convey.

I was thinking too long. It was long enough that Addy's slim finger patted my cheek while she chuckled. "You're supposed to say: "Yes, but you're my baby".

That set off a whole other loop of her English words in my mind but I shut it down. No use over-analyzing a joke, and even without the fluency of English slang, I could tell she was joking with me.

The short strands of her hair were silky between my fingers, "You're mine and I'd have you no other way."

My words drew a smile from her, "You're a charmer."

"Only for you."

"That's a lie and you know it."

It wasn't but it pleased me to think she thought that, I could count at least one male on this ship who was less than thrilled with my presence. Thoughts of Bask brought me back to thoughts of the females down on the planet below us and then again back still to Cece who was nestled away in the other room. It seemed that Addy's thoughts mirrored my own as she glanced back to the open doorway we'd left behind to give our guest her privacy while she explored her room. "How do you feel about her?"

She chewed on her bottom lip, "I don't--" her words stuttered for a second while she fought to catch up with the thoughts that caused her eyes to flick between me and the room that Cecelia occupied, "--I don't feel anything wrong." Even that didn't seem to sit right with her, so she tried again, "Do Val' people have the same intuition humans do? I'd imagine yes, or even more so. It's this feeling in your gut when you can tell something is wrong?"

It was one of the feelings I associated with the sensation of someone lying, among a few others. I'd never quite known if it was purely from my abilities as an empath, or some other animal intuition, "I believe we do. At the very least, I'm familiar with similar sensations." I couldn't say I'd felt them for Cecelia, though. I would defer to Addy's judgment when it came to other humans-- since I'd only ever really handled one, while she'd handled a legion.

She nodded, "I don't feel it for her. Nothing feels wrong per se, it just feels different. I've thought it before, but she gives off this sterile feeling. Very clinical. If I didn't know any better, I'd tell you she was an AI."

"Artificial intelligence?"

"Yeah, but Earth isn't anywhere near that level of technology."

"And the ship did a full body scan for her to search for any re-engineered outdated alien technology. She's completely human."

"I think it's just a product of the kind of person that ends up in a position to be on the run from the government. She's less invested in socialization and more interested in technology."

"Do you think she's a spy sent from Earth?" It was a genuine concern, though we would have been more than willing to share helpful technologic advances with the planet. It was a shame the human governments had only asked for tech that specialized in destruction.

"Honestly?"

I nodded. I only ever wanted honesty from her.

"If she is one, she's terrible. That immediate red flag after talking about possible weaknesses in the Aarond Forms' biological ecosystem. I mean unless she's playing a long con and trying to make herself seem harmless by being so obvious."

Addy chewed on her lip again and I couldn't help myself. I pressed my thumb to her chin, pulling her bottom lip free of her teeth and turning her to look at me. She mostly looked amused. It was an expression I hoped I would see more often after all of these responsibilities settled and we could just enjoy each other.

"I'm sorry, was I tempting you?" Her eyes sparkled.

"Always." I shot forward and kissed her.

She pulled back with a sigh that told me it wasn't what she wanted, but she stopped me from pulling her back against my chest with more of her musing questions. Her words were scarcely above a whisper, "How do you feel about her?"

Certainly a lot of things. There was a hint of annoyance that I offered to bring her here, but that was entirely my own fault, and the fault of Vailen for not having the good sense to think of a better option, but that's also not quite his fault either. The situation was less than ideal. As far as what I felt from Cecelia herself: "The same as you. Nothing disingenuous. It's mostly muffled emotion. She is sincere, however. At least in everything that she's said so far."

"Muffled? How so?"

It was hard to quantify the difference in emotions between creatures. The intensity of emotions changed even within the same person, so simply saying hers were 'weaker' wasn't entirely accurate. They felt diluted or even just a little bit mismatched, though some things filtered through perfectly. "Most of what I feel from her is diluted or nearly intangible. The best idea I can give for it is looking into a pond of water and seeing something --a rock, a fish, anything of interest-- you know it's there and can perceive it. It's when you reach in to grab it and the distortion in the reflection of the water itself has you grasping at nothing at all. I am aware of her emotions beneath the surface, but it's nearly impossible to feel them in the same way I usually do."

"And we're certain she's not an AI?" Addy's chuckle was a warm breath across my chest.

"If the sensation was for all of her emotions, I'd say no. Some come through fine, like curiosity. She's very intuitive and observant. It feels like a tart taste on my tongue nearly the entirety of the time I'm around her. Those emotions are very clear, nearly overwhelmingly so along with the fact that she as far as I can tell, she's never once lied to us."

There was a beat of silence before Addy summed up all of the things we knew about Cecelia: "Her name is Cecelia Marie Bird. She's from Houston Texas. She's curious, observant, intuitive, and so far honest. She's technologically fluent. She's our guest." She ticked off each of the items on her fingers. There were eight in total.

"She's probably not an Artificial Intelligence," I added and was amused to see Addy absently check that off on her fingers as well.

"Do you know what I think?"

"No, what?"

"I think we should just ask her."

We turned as one back toward the door to what was Cecelia's room. She stood absently in the doorway, half-turned towards us as she fussed with the touch-activated snappings on the long sleeve shirt that the ship had given her, "Ask me what?"

She finally turned to us then, meeting our gazes with blatant sincerity. I'd never noticed how dark her eyes were until this moment. It surprised me as the color was relatively unusual for Val' people our genetics skewing towards more salient colors. Humans, though --I told myself came-- in a wide range of variations across their planet.

Cecelia turned to Addy with her question, her glance was steady.

I realized then, one of the things that I'd picked up on as odd. She'd met Addy's gaze immediately when we'd first met and when they'd communicated. But, had never done so with me. I chalked it up to an evolutionary predisposition towards bonding with the only other human on board. Maybe something with a similar basis to it as Kayle's abilities. It was food for thought, I vowed to bring the concept up to Kados the next time he made himself a nuisance, in need of something worth studying for days on end.

I focused back in on their conversation, catching Addy's question only just as she finished with it.

"Cece...what are you looking to gain in coming here?"

*****A/N*****

It's been so overcast the last few days. With clouds nearly the color of blackberries rolling in overheard and grumbling for a little bit before they pass over.

What's funny is, my brother and I are incredibly similar in odd ways that you never quite realize until one of us says something that we thought was unique or niche to ourselves. As an afterthought the other day while we were out walking with our mother, he made a comment about loving afternoon thunderstorms while we were in the process of racing the rain back to our car on the opposite side of the park half a mile away. He mentioned how the afternoon thunderstorms are really what make a Florida summer "summer", not the beaches, nor the heat/humidity, or even the mosquitos. It's the dark looming clouds that eat up the whole sky and cause the temperature to drop immediately and the wind to pick up in gusts when it was a standstill before. It's the fat raindrops that fall and soak you completely as soon as the first one hits you.

He mentioned if he ever left here, that sensation would be what he missed of Florida summers.

It's always so jarring to hear sentiments that ramble through your mind echoed in someone else's words/writing. It reminds me that we're all human and the thing that really connects us is the processing of the world around us. The idea that everyone's inner life is a rich and colorful as our own is so breathtakingly beautiful to me. To have a world filled with ideas of favorite colors, or of things worth being missed.

Despite everything, I do think that the natural human response is to love.

It is enough to simply be human,

~Layla